Set the Scene!
- Mark Lipton
- Aug 10, 2020
- 4 min read
Location: Your paint store
Time: 3:00 AM
Date: Three-months after your web site and e-commerce went live
It’s 3:00 AM and the first shift, a member of your tinting staff and an order packer, slip the key into the door of your store. They immediately turn and lock themselves in. It’s 3 AM; there won’t be any walk-in business for hours! They fill the coffee machine and walk to the printer. Just like yesterday: 20 orders totaling $3000 came in overnight.
That’s $4013.20 in Canada!
But you’re still asleep and will be for hours.
The $3000 is comprised of one $750 order from a painter your salesman was finally able to open an account with. Swayed to deal with you when he found out he could order at night after all his crews had checked in and still have his orders ready for pick up early the next morning.
The rest of the orders are a mix of DIY and painter business. They will be tinted and packed and prepared to be picked up by the customer, your driver or perhaps a delivery service. None of which is a concern for you because whoever is picking up each order has already gotten an email notifying them that their order is ready. So go back to sleep.
It will be three hours before you wake up, roll over and grab your bedside iPad. Your new habit since you installed your website and e-commerce solution three months ago.
Smile!
You are not even out of bed yet, and you are already profitable for the day!
Your staff makes good money to open the store at 3:00 AM! As “keyholders,” they make $25 an hour, plus an extra $10 per hour in “combat pay” for rising with the roosters. A small price to pay for the opportunity to make money while you sleep.
LITERALLY!
This is what a dynamic and well-marketed website, paired with a slick e-commerce solution can do for your business.
This is what Lexington, the web site and e-commerce solution designed by an independent paint retailer FOR independent paint retailers, will do for your business!
Born from my desire to help a dealer, and my recognition that what we were building could help ALL dealers, Lexington: the web site and e-commerce platform for independent paint retailers is now available!
Jony Ive, the much-lauded Chief Design Officer at Apple who created the iPhone said, “It's very easy to be different but very difficult to be better.”
I agree!
And that’s why we worked so hard to make Lexington the best solution to grow your sales, your market share and your profitability.
Of course, Lexington is not JUST a web site. The fully-integrated Lexington e-commerce solution is a powerful tool in the hands of your DIY customers.
In the hands of professional painters it’s a weapon, aimed at your local and national competitors.
With just a few clicks from order to curbside, painters will prefer the efficiency of the Lexington ordering process to picking up the phone and calling a competitor. The customer dashboard will allow painters to place a new order, check their balance and pay their bill, check previous orders (with one-click reordering).
Lexington is a seamless shopping experience which allows your customers to find inspiration on your site and then click to purchase without ever leaving your domain! While also giving your professional customers the ability to one-click reorder “that color I got last week!”
The Walk-In!
You will always have walk-in business. What has changed though, is that the consumers who DO walk-in to your stores will do so prepared to buy. They will have already checked the colors, products and advice on your web site. They will have shopped your price, selection and merchandising before they walk in. In-fact, they'll use the experience they have on your web site to decide if they are even going to walk-in!
If you don’t have a robust web site, your prospective walk-in customers will get that experience from another web site. Consumers current desires are clearly to shop locally owned small businesses.
But they will find your locally owned store, by checking online!
Even if they never use your e-commerce, almost all of your transactions will still start online and so that means your web site, like your brick and mortar store, will need to be found.
So, adding the right marketing is the final piece.
If you want to tap the larger markets around your current brick and mortar stores and drive more business to your physical and online locations, you’ll need local social media and local marketing budgets to make that happen.
This, is THE investment which will grow your sales!
Already able to integrate with the largest POS system in the market and with the others in development Lexington, the web site and e-commerce solution for independent paint retailers, is ready to get you found! With funding (at-least partially) available through cooperative advertising programs with the major paint manufacturers the time is right! The risk is the dust on your shoes. The reward is the heavens!
So now what?
For starters go here and take a look at some program details:
After you see some of the features, leave your contact information on our form and we will be in touch with you. We are also planning an open Zoom broadcast for anyone interested in Lexington. It’s scheduled for Thursday August 13th at 6:30 PM EASTERN time. You can access the meeting here: LEXINGTON ZOOM.
Lexington; firing the first shot in the War for Independents. Be among the first to transform your business.
